


Palmers' Kiss

by cordelianoir



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Kaz POV, Mostly Fluff, Prompt fill: Relationships, Refernced PTSD and touch aversion, Some feels, mentions of cannon-typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 12:22:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13589976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordelianoir/pseuds/cordelianoir
Summary: Inej returns home from her first voyage and she and Kaz catch up.---------Kaz unlocked his door to find Inej sitting on a low stool beside his desk attacking her wet hair with one of his combs.She looked soaked through, presumably from climbing to his window in the rain. She’d lit a fire in his grate. It gave the room a warm, flickering quality that made her seem almost like an illusion.  He was tempted to go over and touch her arm, just to make sure she was really there.@sixofcrowsnet heist: relationships





	Palmers' Kiss

# Kaz

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. Anika seemed to speak more slowly. Remmy seemed to walk into the room at an agonizing pace. The very second hand on the clock seemed to be taking its sweet time making its rotation. Yet every time Kaz glanced at the clock it seemed to be impossibly later.

The Wraith had docked that afternoon amidst a heavy rainstorm and one of the most convoluted business deals with the Razorgulls that Kaz had ever had the misfortune to be in charge of. 

One of Kaz’s runners from the docks had alerted him that morning that The Wraith was due at harbor later that day. He had planned to be there when her Captain disembarked, maybe even come aboard himself, but the Razorgulls were skittish and would have abandoned the deal altogether if Kaz had left. As much as he wanted to abandon the deal, Inej wouldn’t forgive him if he walked away from a deal to take down a pleasure house just because he wanted to see her a few hours sooner.

It was well past sunset when the Razorgulls finally left and still pouring rain. Kaz practically hopped up the stairs in his haste to get his wax-treated coat from his room and get off to the docks. He wasn’t hopping anymore by the time he reached his attic rooms, the pain from his leg forcing him to a more sedate pace. But quickly found that he needn’t have worried. 

Kaz unlocked his door to find Inej sitting on a low stool beside his desk attacking her wet hair with one of his own combs.

Kaz couldn’t help but drink up the sight of her. In the three and a half months she’d been at sea, her skin had darkened slightly from the constant exposure to the sun and her hair was wilder, wavy from the sea air. But other than that she looked the same physically. It was only when she glanced up at him for a moment and smiled that he noted the confident set of her shoulders and the way she seemed more present than she had when she had been his wraith.

She also looked soaked through, presumably from climbing to his window in the rain. She’d lit a fire in his grate. It gave the room a warm, flickering quality that made her seem almost like an illusion. He was tempted to go over and touch her arm, just to make sure she was really there.

“I used your bath to warm up after the rain,” Inej said proving her existence easily, eyes still focused on her hair, “I hope you don’t mind.”

The water in the Slat was never particularly hot, especially up in the attic, but the private bathroom was a luxury nonetheless. He pictured her for a moment, relaxing in the tepid water. Maybe she had tipped her head back and rest it against the ceramic lip or leaned forward to massage soap into her long black hair, the water glistening on her the smooth curve of her spine.

Kaz swallowed. 

“Of course,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t betray the fact that that mental image would be with him every time he took a bath from now on. He hid his face and the heat he could feel there by removing his jacket and gloves.

As he forced down his reaction, Inej threw down the comb in disgust. 

“I let my hair down one time at sea,” she said, her low, even voice like a balm against his ears, even as she sniffed in contempt. “Still the knots refuse to come out.”

Kaz stepped forward, taking the comb from where she’d tossed it onto the desk. 

“I can help you,” he said, the barest edge of a smile playing around the edges of his mouth.

She looked up at him, her long dark lashes getting in the way slightly. 

“How much experience do you have pulling knots out of hair?” she asked skeptically. Still she threw the tangle of hair over her shoulder and turned her back to him, allowing him to try. He pulled a chair closer to her stool and sat down before taking up her hair.

It was still damp to the touch and for a moment he felt water rise around him, the Reaper’s barge pushing into his thoughts, the wet hair of the bodies there. Then he took a deep breath and forced the waters down. It wasn’t cold dead skin. He could handle a little bit of hair. 

Inej’s hair was warm, despite the water. Warm from the bath and the heat of the fire in the room. It was also deceptively tangled beneath the layer of smooth hair Inej had managed to comb out. Kaz wrapped his fingers around a section of hair and gently began to pick at it with the comb like he might a lock. His fingers stood out like pale sticks against the black strands of her hair.

“You can be more aggressive than that,” Inej said after a few moments.

She was right; he needed to be more aggressive. Her hair was more complex than any lock. Where a lock might have six, seven, or even twenty tumblers, her hair was an unknowable number of strands all knotted up by the wind. He took up a larger section and began working it from the ends of her hair where he could run a comb through without protest. Then he moved upward in tiny increments, working through the knots one at a time as he’d once seen Marya Hendriks’ maid helping the woman do in the sitting room when he’d gone to speak with Jesper early one morning.

“Captain Ramirez came into port two weeks ago, raving about female pirates,” Kaz said conversationally once he’d gotten into a rhythm with the knots. “I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that.”

“Ramirez,” Inej said, tone a mockery of thoughtfulness. Her smile was apparent even from behind. “Doesn’t seem to ring a bell.”

Kaz worked through the last of one knot and moved higher up the length of Inej’s hair to start on another. 

“I did, however, return sixteen girls to their homes in Ravka and Fjerda who happened to be aboard a ship I came across.”

“Only sixteen?” Kaz said mildly, untangling another knot and enjoying the smooth movement of her hair over his bare knuckles.

“That’s more than one a week on average,” Inej pointed out, turning her head so she could glare at him out of the corner of her eye. “Including the time I spent with my family in Ravka.”

Kaz clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “You’ll have to better than that if you want to build a legend for yourself, Captain.”

Inej threw her head back and laughed. And there it was. The air evacuated his lungs and everything focused on her. The way her tangled hair fell into his lap. The way her teeth stood out against her skin the way his fingers did in her hair. The little creases around her eyes.

“I’ll be sure to think more about my reputation next time,” she said with a smile. She turned fully to face him then, her hair slithering through his fingers like sand. She was still smiling when she gently rested her hand on his knee, a hairs width away from his own. It was a nudge. A reminder of what they’d talked about before she sailed away. But she let it be his choice to close that last bit of distance.

Slowly, he slid his hand over hers. First the pinky, then the ring finger, the middle, index and thumb. He breathed slowly as the waters lapped at his ankles. Her fingers feet simultaneously warm and cold, dry and wet. Gently, he let his fingers drift to her wrist, sliding along skin until the index and middle finger were resting on her pulse point. The constant thrum of her pulse pushed the water down until it was nothing but a puddle of rain on the floor beneath them.

“I didn’t finish with your hair,” he pointed out, making no move away from the warmth of her skin beneath his palm.

“It’ll be just as knotted later,” she pointed out, turning her hand over beneath his, so they were palm to palm. Kaz kept his fingers lightly at her wrist and could feel the jump of her pulse as she moved, but he didn’t know if it was from excitement or fear.

“Kaz,” she said softly, still staring down at their joined hands. But she didn’t continue, just looked up to meet his eyes.

Kaz didn’t gamble, but just this once, he wanted to push his luck. He wanted to lean in and press their lips together. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and feel the way her ribs moved when she laughed. But he also knew that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to stay in this room warmed by the fire. He would be back in the water, drowning in the touch of skin that was not hers. 

So instead he looked back down at their hands and moved them so that his outer two fingers could wrap around the side of her thumb.

“Tell me more,” he said quietly, though the words tilted up at the end as if they were a question. “Tell me about the ship.”

Inej smiled and leaned back against the desk but left her hand on his knee as she described the voyage to Ravka. She told him about her sisters and what had changed, but mostly she spoke about the waves and the way her crew found out which traders were secretly trading people as well as goods. She told him without pause about the captain of that ship that she’d left without two of his fingers – the middle ones – to warn everyone else of his true colors. She told him plainly without emotion about the blood and how she’d been unsure what to do with the finger’s afterward, but he could feel the way her pulse jumped where his fingers still rested on her wrist.

“Now that’s how you make a name for yourself,” Kaz said, running his free hand through the ends of her hair and working through a few more knots with his fingers and Inej had laughed again. 

They spent the rest of the night like that, hands entwined, sharing stories from the months they spent apart and untangling the knots in Inej’s hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Six of Crows Net Heist focused on Relationships.
> 
> Title taken from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, "Good pilgrim you do wrong your hands too much/ which mannerly devotion shows in this,/ For Saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,/ And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss." And soon the actually kiss, but you know, whatever.
> 
> I know everyone's still waiting for the next chapter of "I Don't Ever Trust, But I Still Choose You" but I chose to write this instead of editing the next chapter because the deadline is tonight. Sorry for the delay, hopefully this will help with some Kanej fluff and feels!


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